


Put a Sock on the Doorhandle

by kiwifruity



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Christmas Party, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Office Party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-04-19 13:14:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21902116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwifruity/pseuds/kiwifruity
Summary: Stan didn't want to go to a shitty Christmas office party. Unexpectedly, the headache Health and Safety manager and the dumbass from PR make the night a lot better than expected.-IT Fandom Secret Santa 2019!
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Comments: 5
Kudos: 122





	Put a Sock on the Doorhandle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SpicyWolfsbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicyWolfsbane/gifts).

> It's late, it's shit and it's for my friend Dani. I love you! You deserve better. Kiss kiss xo

_ Join Bridgestone Offices for their annual _

_ CHRISTMAS PARTY _

_ Saturday evening, December 17th. _ _   
_ _ Cocktails at 6:30 pm _

_ Dinner at 7:30 pm. _

Stan crumples the garish green and red flyer into his trashcan for the  _ third _ time this week. He saw the flyers when they were tacked on the notice board beside the water cooler. And beside the coffee machine. And in the break room. And on the bathroom door. And the email chain. Now some jackass has been taping it to his monitor before he comes in, not only is it a waste of paper - but it’s leaving a tacky residue on the top of his monitor and it’s been driving him mad. He tried as much to lean over his desk and peel it off with his nails - but they were too short to do much good. His coworkers had been jabbering excitedly all week about it - Debra, who isn’t even  _ really _ an accountant, all she does is payroll - had been talking about getting matching jumpers for their department so they could all match ‘like a big happy family’. Stan had almost retched into his coffee when he heard it. 

In the midst of his disgruntled lamenting over the garish nature of friendliness his co-workers had taken to shovelling down his throat, an envelope fell onto his lap, heavy enough to wrench him out of his thoughts. In front of him, stood one of the interns: a kid who didn’t want to be there any more than Stan did, dressed in pants too tight and a shirt too loose and a visible hangover, “Good God, Calvin, it’s a  _ Thursday _ ,” The boy just shrugged.

“A docket from the shipment the Health and Safety department ordered,” He managed after Stan’s questionable look.

“What - from last week? I’ve already processed it,” He went to hand it back but the kid was already leaving.

“I dunno man, the HS manager all but threw it at me on his way to the coffee machine this morning and told me to process it.”

Sure enough - when Stan opened it, the docket was dated today. Another fucking shipment of high-vis vests? Stan ordered new ones  _ last week. _ There is no way in hell that they needed more, the old ones weren’t even really in need of replacing in the first place. By this rate the department is gonna blow their yearly allowance long before the new financial year. Like they did last year, and who was left with the headache trying to move budgets around so that the employees could still get paid? Stan. Who had to sit with the departmental managers and tell them that their department couldn’t afford holiday bonuses? Stan. Who had called  _ fourteen _ different distributors to cancel unnecessary orders? Stan. And who didn’t get a word of thanks? Scratch that: who got a barrage of strongly-worded e-mails from the Health and Safety Manager?

Stan couldn’t help but groan. As is the  _ pleasure  _ of working with Eddie Kaspbrak.

  
  


Stan could hardly believe that he allowed himself to be dragged to this stupid Christmas party. It was ridiculous. He had  _ told _ his coworkers time and time again that he was Jewish and didn’t care for any of these festivities. Although, it had to be said, the girls from PR do make pretty good cocktails.    
  
So good, in fact, that Stan has burned through three pornstar martinis, a long island iced tea and a pair of screwdrivers. And beside him, nursing a lukewarm white russian was a blur of a man wearing a well-fitted suit. The man seemed caught in surprise when Stan greeted him, “Oh - hey, Stanley. How’s it- uh… how’s it going?” 

Stan hardly recognised him, only by voice. Although Stan usually heard it in angry phone calls and scathing comments about increasing the budget, “Edward Kaspbrak.”

“Oh - Eddie, please,” Eddie said, swirling his cocktail in its glass, “No one has called me Edward since I was a kid.” 

“Surely ‘Eddie’ is more of a childhood nickname,” Stan took the seat beside him, “It’s not often I get the pleasure of seeing the holder of the company record for email suspensions in person.” 

Eddie laughed nervously, “Uh… yeah. How many times has my company email been suspended now? Twelve?” 

“Thirteen, not that it stopped you. Using your personal account,” Stan let out a breathy laugh, “I wondered who ‘ [ conductoreds@outlook.com ](mailto:conductoreds@outlook.com) ’ was until I saw the subject line, you could make a sailor blush, you know that? What are you a conductor of, anyway?” 

Eddie pointedly stared at his drink for a moment, before he let out a huff of laughter. His shoulders gradually untensed as he spoke, “I used to like trains when I was a kid. Used to play down at the old tracks. Didn’t even do anything fun, really. Just used to walk them up and down.”

“Balancing on the beams?” Stan remembered the train tracks in Derry. He didn’t go down them much, there wasn’t much to do there, and on more than one occasion he’d have seen the Bowers gang crouched smoking inside one of the upturned shipping containers that the homeless would usually squat in.

Eddie let out a laugh and raised his glass, “Yes! Shit, the number of times I fell off and scabbed my knees. My mom would be in fits when I came home,” He looked a little faraway for a second, trailing off. He shook his head and took another swig, “Doesn’t matter. I’m out of Derry now, anyway.”

“Derry? No shit!” Stan said, he slapped Eddie with a firm hand on his bicep - oh, that’s a  _ bicep _ alright, “Uh- I’m from Derry too.”

“No shit? I was two blocks off Neibolt, you remember, near the East river?” 

“Yeah, the Ripsoms lived down there, right?” Eddie nodded, “I was closer to the center, you know the Synagogue?”

Eddie laughed suddenly, “You know, I always wondered if you were Stanley Uris as in the  _ Stanley Urine _ graffitied up the side of the Synagogue, but I thought I was being… racist? Religion-racist.”

“I know what you mean. Small world, Kaspbrak,” Stan cleared off his drink and he hadn’t taken his hand off of Eddie’s arm, “Shall I buy you a drink… for Derry?”

“Fuck no. Buy it for me - not  _ that _ shithole.”

  
  
  


_To: _[_suris77@bridgestone.outlook.com__  
_](mailto:suris76@bridgestone.outlook.com)_From: _[_ekaspbrak76@bridgestone.outlook.com_](mailto:ekaspbrak76@bridgestone.outlook.com) _  
__ Subject: FUCKING PPE__  
__  
__I know you goddam pencil pushers dont give two shits or fucks about anyone else in this fucking company. But i do. You knwo why? IT’S MY JOB. i’m trying to make sure everyone stays safe and the warehouse workers dont get fucking STEAMROLLED by a fucking FORKLIFT. Stop cancelling my fucking orders_

_ Regards,  _ _   
_ _ E.K.  _

_ \-- _

_ Sent from my iPhone _

_ To:  _ [ _ ekaspbrak76@bridgestone.outlook.com _ _   
_ ](mailto:ekaspbrak76@bridgestone.outlook.com) _ From:  _ [ _ suris77@bridgestone.outlook.com _ ](mailto:suris77@bridgestone.outlook.com) _ _

_ Subject: RE: FUCKING PPE _

_ Mr. Kaspbrak, _ _   
_ _ I understand that your job involves the safety of our workers and therefore I am under the acknowledgement that you require PPE for your department. I have noted your displeasure in regards to the constraints of your department’s budget, and as I have previously mentioned, we will review your budget for potential increase come the end of this financial year. Your emails will not speed up this process. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Regards, _ _   
_ _ Stanley Uris _

  
  
  


“Remember that Pharmacist… the creepy guy, what was he called….” 

“Mister Keets! Oh my god - why did you remind me of him? He always had crusty-ass old man lips, when he talked you could see his fucking  _ lip skin _ flapping,” Eddie shuddered, “He’d always lick them to moisten them, it was so gross.”

“Well you know the rumours, maybe he was hitting on you,” Stan said, finishing off his  _ third _ cosmopolitan with Eddie. 

Eddie blanched and shuddered, “Not funny. Stop laughing, shitbag, it’s not funny,” Oh but it was - it was  _ deliriously  _ funny. Stan’s stomach muscles were pulsing in pain from laughing so hard and it was all he could do to steady himself on Eddie’s arm before he keeled over off the chair he was sitting on, “Woah - had a little too much to drink there, Stanley?”

“Like  _ you’re _ sober.”

“Fair point,” Eddie clapped Stan’s shoulder. He kept his arm there. Blurry hazel met blurry brown, “You want another drink?” Hands squeezing with intent. The tension from snappy emails and passive aggressive staff notices filling to the brim, only surface tension keeping the gelatinous hold of it from spilling over.

They didn’t have another drink. People parted without sparing glances as Eddie Kaspbrak led Stanley Uris out of the lobby turned bar and into the deserted, beige-painted hallways.

  
  
  


People parted with sideways glares and tuts as Stan shouldered his way through the crowd at the staff notice board. On it: the Christmas Party flyer, a handwritten notice to refill the coffee pot if you have emptied it, employee of the month (Frank Frick, the IT support worker on the third floor, gangly with a lazy eye which always seemed trained on Stanley), an assortment of staff notices dating back all the way to spring, and there it stood. A newspaper clipping from a headline of today’s paper:  _ WAREHOUSE OFFICER KILLED IN WORKPLACE ACCIDENT: COMPANY DECLARES BANKRUPTCY AT $30,000,000 COMPENSATION _ , circled angrily in red pen, the paper carved in a three-dimensional record of I-Told-You-So. 

When Stan made his way out of the cattle-market of his sweaty co-workers, right before he made the turn to the hallway where Accounts was nestled, way at the back, far away from the hustle and bustle, Eddie Kaspbrak was standing with a coffee in one hand and the other in the pocket of his suit pants. Stan could see the outline of his wedding ring through the tight fabric. Stan gave a professional smile and made to move on-

  
“Terrible, isn’t it?” Eddie said from behind his coffee, taking a casual sip.

“Yes,” Stan, of course, listened to the news on the way to the office every morning and this had been the headline newsbit of the eight-o’clock session, “Such a tragic accident, they should never have had that teenage intern driving the forklift that ran the victim over, it’s a good job all of our warehouse workers are forklift certified, isn’t it. I believe four of them are up for their license renewal this year, right?” Stan barely waited for Eddie’s eyebrows to furrow and his eyes to grow stormy before he bid his farewell because he is ever so busy with so much work to do, he hardly has time to be standing gossiping, have a good day, Mister Kaspbrak. 

  
  
  


Blinds shut. Not shut fully: because they’re a little broke in the sixth-floor conference room. Stripes of orange-yellow light contouring around Eddie’s shoulder, where his half-unbuttoned shirt had so gratefully slipped, inviting torrid mouthings at the tanned skin. The cheap plastic table (painted to resemble wood) dug painfully into Stan’s rear, even through the cocktails snuffing his nervous system as best it could. It didn’t do a good job because when Eddie bit down on his lip a little harder than normal, it scorched his insides all the way down to his crotch, which was burning through his pants. 

Eddie fumbled with the buttons on Stan’s shirt for an agonizingly long time before he grabbed either side of the parting as if to rip it, “No, this is Prada, don’t tear it. Let me…” His fingers slipped on the buttons time and time again, but eventually the wretched garment was tugged off of his shoulders- and not an inch more. It splayed around his wrists and fell like silk, or a wide-hem cardigan down and draped down in a tantalising arch to his rear.

Eddie was all too quick to leave burning bruised up his collarbones and shoulders. Polite enough to steer clear of his neck, where even his high-collared shirts wouldn’t cover. Any piece of skin was fair game. Hot, open-mouthed kisses, nips and bites and bruises. With a particularly rough bit of manhandling on Eddie’s part - the groan forced its way out of Stan’s lips before he could stop it. There, he ground into Eddie like a desperate whore. 

“Prada? Is that where my department’s budget it going? To buy you designer clothes?” Eddie spat, not out of anger, or out of any real hostility but this is where the dam had broken. Surface tension wasn’t enough anymore, the tension had rose and rose and rose until not only did it overflow, waterfalling over in a city-destroying level tsunami, but what it had once been contained in had shattered. Shards exploding into their skin, dissolving heat and  _ urgency _ into their bloodstream.

“Everyone knows you wear Prada loafers, Eddie. Don’t kid yourself,” Stan managed through Eddie’s aggressive kiss. Their blood bubbled inside them and shirts were whipped to the floor, shoes, even Eddie’s two-thousand-dollar Prada loafers were kicked wherever, belts unbuckled with angry hands and pants yanked down. Eddie yanked Stan’s hard enough to almost pull him off of the table, and with small but weathered, strong hands, Eddie finally,  _ finally _ , palmed Stan’s-

“Oh, wow! Do you kids nowadays not know about the ol’ sock on the handle trick? Is that out-dated? Am I out of touch with the youth- Holy  _ Shit!” _ A loud, booming laughter, followed by a barrage of swearing from Eddie, “Eddie? Are you fucking serious? Oh boy, I know you said your marriage was a ‘ _ floor stop on the elevator down to the depths of the hell that is my fucking life’ _ but really? You’re grassing up some poor intern?” It was now that Stan raised his head from where he’d hidden it in Eddie’s chest, and when Richard Tozier stuttered over his jabs to blurt out incredulously, “Stan?!”

  
  
  


Before the door even opens, Stan has a headache. 

“Staaaaaaaaan? Oh Stanny-boy?”

A Monday. Why does he have to do this on a  _ Monday? _ The door opens and there he is: Richard Tozier. Six-foot of disturbance. Shoulders too wide and chest too broad and shirt far too colourful for Stan’s small beige office. 

  
“What do you want, Richie?” 

“Is that any way to talk to your childhood friend?” 

“I don’t see Mike anywhere,” Stan looked around, lifted up his keyboard and looked inside the soil of his desk plant, “Nope, no childhood friend here.”

“Oh  _ Ha-Ha. _ We were thick as thieves, me and you.”

“You and I,” Stan corrected, “We were in the same History class, you called me Steven on more than one occaision.”

Richie waved it off, “Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. All that matters is that we are friends, no?”

“No.”    
  
Richie ignored him, “So why, my dearest and nearest pal, Stan, did you reject my advertising proposal?” 

Stan finally looked up from his monitor, in disbelief, “You can not be serious, are you genuinely asking me why?” Richie nodded, feet firm, “Well for one, you’re not even  _ in _ advertisement. You’re Public Relations, you don’t even have the jurisdiction to buy advertising space. Second, our company manufactures and sells glass jars.  _ Jars, _ Richie. Jam jars, peanut butter, olive oil, you’re aware? So please, pray tell, why you tried to buy advertising space on  _ Tik-Tok? _ I don’t even know what that  _ is _ .” 

“It’s-”

“Oh no, I googled it, I did my research. It left more questions than answers. One main question:  _ why?” _

“I was just trying to broaden our horizons! Pick up more clientele, but I guess I’ll go fuck myself,” He said, making his leave, “I would ask your mother to do it for me, but she’s still sore after last night.” And like that, he was gone. Stan’s headache, however, would last the rest of the day.

  
  
  


Richie, now flush up against Stan’s back, towered over him, around him, and pushed him further into Eddie, who was pressed where Stan had been previously: the shitty conference table. Richie’s form blocked the slits of orange light. Outside, there was a sock on the door handle. 

When Eddie turned just right (like when Stan ground down on him) the orange slit would explode in his eyes. Swimming brown to refracts of amber whiskey through a crystal tumbler. Eyes blew wide in pleasure, fuzzy from the cocktails but laser-focused on Stan. On Richie. On both of them together.

All three of them dancing in a waltz adapted to a triage of lust. One-step, two-step, one-bruise, two-bruise. A santa hat was suddenly pushed onto Stan’s head, Stan said it was a hate crime and Richie only laughed and groped at him. The plastic from his glasses dug into his collarbone as Richie reached around to mouth teasingly along the offering of Stan’s neck. Light bites up his jugular as Eddie’s hand wormed its way into Stan’s boxer-briefs.

“Take off the stupid hat or I swear to God I’m walking,” Eddie said, squeezing Stan with threat. Stan only groaned and laid his head back on Richie.

  
“Do that again,” Richie’s hand wrapped around Eddie’s wrist and squeezed, but Eddie didn’t budge.

“Not a chance. Take it off.” 

With a sigh, “You heard the boss, Stan. Take it off.”

“No,” Stan laughed, “It’s Christmas, Mister Grinch.” 

“C’mon Stan - just take it off,” Stan swerved out of the reach of Richie’s grabby hands, holding the Santa hat somewhat protectively to his head, “You don’t even celebrate Christmas. You near had a shit-fit when I kept putting those flyers on your desk.” 

“You -” No fucking way,  _ “You _ kept harassing me with them fucking flyer?!” Beside himself with fury, he didn’t manage to catch the hat before Richie ripped it from his head and sent it flying some direction behind him.

“It was the only way to get you to come,” He said, pretending not to be sheepish but the flush on his chest gave him away. 

“You could have  _ asked _ me!”

“Oh, yeah-” Eddie spoke through his nose and raised the tone of his voice, “ _ Hey, Stan the Man. You wanna come to the shitty office party and get shit-faced so I can finally work up the courage to make out with you? God, Eddie. He’s just so  _ ** _hot_ ** _ . What do I do? Oh woe is me-” _

“I do not fucking sound like that.”

“That was actually a good impression, Eddie.”

“Oh get fucked, Stanley.”

“I’m trying.” 

A flush on both Eddie and Richie’s faces and a beat of silence that extended a little longer than Stan felt comfortable with. Had he missed the mark? Has the vodka cocktails loosened his lips too much? Oh god - he  _ works _ with these people, he’s never going to be able to come back here ever again. He’s gonna have to quit his job and move back to Atlanta and-

“Here?” 

“No - not a fucking chance. I’m not risking someone walking in when I have my dick out,” Eddie said, tugging his pants up from where they were crumpled between his knees.

“Hey -  _ I _ walked in when you almost had your dick out,” Richie didn’t make any movement to stop Eddie, “I’ll call an Uber. My place? I would suggest Eddie’s but I don’t want Misses Kaspbrak thinking I’m cheating on her.”

Eddie guffawed and ripped Stan into a whirlwind of a kiss, “Make it fast, Rich,” Stan managed between Eddie’s ferocity. 

When the Uber was outside, the three speed-walked to the car (a red 2015 Kia Sorento), eager enough to sprint but not quite drunk enough to ignore the confused stares they would have received. In the conference room, the Santa hat lay disturbed on the beige carpeted floor, and Richie’s sock maintained its post on the doorknob. He would have a blister on his right foot in the morning from his dress shoes rubbing the back of his ankle. 

  
  



End file.
